Horizon Report

After reading the 2014 Horizon report it is easy to be very excited about the future of technology in the classroom. I believe more technology in the classroom is better for both teacher and student. Technology enables teachers to personalize lesson plans to different types of learners in a way that they were never able to do before.

One of the technologies highlighted in the report is gamification. This is one technology I am especially excited about. When I was growing up, when everything was still on floppy disks there was always educational games. However this never had much of a penetration into the classroom. Now it looks like they are finally adapting this resource that has been around for decades. Though they cite examples in the report that are not strictly video games. For example they cite FourSquare as a structure in which the education field can structure lessons around. With FourSquare they were able to amass millions of users despite the main function being just letting people know where you are. They were able to do this by giving out titles and points that made it a game. By applying something simple like that to education, gamification can have a big impact on students interest in lessons and how much they get out of school. Using Minecraft in school is an exciting proposition as well. I have played the game once in my life, so I do not have much experience with it. However, while I was teaching in Korea, almost every boy in the class played Minecraft constantly. Also, they mention in the report that it can be used to introduce children to programming which I think is an excellent idea. I wish I had the opportunity to learn programming at an early age. I tried to teach myself a year or so ago and it was very hard to pick up without any background. If they can teach them at least simple tasks early, it will be much easier for them if they want to delve deeper into programming later.

The other technology that interested me the most was learning analytics. This one interested me because of the current state of education in the US. Right now the country is assessment crazy. Students have to take endless standardized tests. However, these tests are not being used in the right ways. Now they are being used to determine teachers' effectiveness or which schools are wasting resources. This is a terrible use of these tests. However, the technologies highlighted in the learning analytics section of the report use this assessment data the right way. This data is being used to craft lessons to different leveled learners. This technology enables us to craft a student's experience in the classroom to fit their needs. It also has long term uses as well. The article points out how using this data can show if a student is a high risk to drop out of high school in the future. So with the use of this data you can hopefully steer those high risk students in the right direction.